With the anniversary of the opening of Disneyland coming next Tuesday, we thought you might enjoy looking back at a very special event way back then...

By Leo N. Holzer

Special to The Blue Parrot

(originally published in June 2005)

Courtesy photos Sybil Stanton/Los Angeles Herald-Express

The summer of 1955 was magical for two children living in Southern California. Like thousands of others, they visited Disneyland.

But, unlike their peers, the visit by cousins Bill Krauch and Sybil Stanton was part of a revealing peek at the Magic Kingdom weeks before the park opened to the public. Walt Disney himself served as their host and tour guide.

"It was all arranged by our uncle, Robert R.H. Krauch, who was the managing editor of the now-defunct Los Angeles Herald-Express," said Krauch, a resident of Santa Ynez, Calif., who was 12 years old and living in West Los Angeles at the time. The Herald-Express was an afternoon newspaper; the Los Angeles Times was the morning newspaper.

"The Herald-Express wanted to do a pre-opening story on Disneyland," Krauch continued. "I'm not sure how they decided they wanted two kids, but it makes sense considering it was Disneyland."

Uncle Robert's children were too old, so he and his wife selected Krauch from one side of the family and Stanton, then 9, from the other side of the family.

"We were the favorite niece and nephew of an appropriate age. We filled the bill," Stanton said from her home in Newport Beach, Calif.

The children spent about five hours in the park with Walt Disney, hours that were crammed full of activities and photo opportunities.

"There'll be things to do here forever," Walt Disney said as he welcomed them into his playland, a statement that still rings true today.

The Herald-Express ran a three-day, photo-packed series about the visit the children took in the first week of July 1955. The park opened to the general public on July 18, 1955.

The park was still under construction when the pair met Disney.

"The visit was really geared to the outdoor things where they could get a good photo shot," Krauch said. "Disney was very protective, very concerned that we were treated well and that the newspaper got the photos it needed."

"I really remember Main Street USA," Stanton added. "That's where we got on the horse-drawn trolley. There were a lot of things nearing completion, a lot of things for Walt to check out and he was quite observant about everything."

There was a ride with Disney on the streetcar; a trip on pack mules and aboard the park's Congo Queen for an exotic voyage on the waters of "The Jungle Cruise."

According to the 1955 newspaper article, Disney took the children on The Jungle Cruise twice, giving each child a chance at the helm.

"We spent a lot of time in Adventureland," Stanton recalled. "I remember getting a chance to pilot the Jungle Cruise boat and approaching the waterfall. I remember Walt Disney's teasing, telling me to make sure I dodged it. But I knew we'd stay safe and dry. You could see the tracks (underwater guiding the boat)."

Stanton also remembers boarding the Mark Twain Riverboat. "It was so huge and stately but it didn't go anywhere," she said. "It hadn't been launched yet."

During their visit, they also stepped through Sleeping Beauty's Castle and walked into Fantasyland.

The group explored Tomorrowland, which opened with its sights set on the future of 1986. Krauch fondly recalls driving an Autopia car that day and how it remained personal favorite on subsequent visits to the park.

Despite the interest in Disneyland among their peers, the cousins don't remember being elevated to celebrity status once the three-day series was published. Much of the curiosity came later in their lives.

"At 9 years old, your friends aren't reading the daily newspaper," Stanton said. "But I was bringing my little scrapbook to every show-and-tell class up until I was probably a freshman in high school."

Stanton recalls Disney as being "really handsome and sweet. He had the most wonderful voice. I'm not sure we even had a television at this time and I had no concept of what Disneyland was all about."

"I thought he was a great gentleman, very, very kind and quite humble," Krauch said. "I probably didn't fully recognize what a magnificent achievement and what a great individual he was at the time, being relatively young.

"I think I became more familiar and interested in Walt Disney after that day," he continued. "One of the things that impressed me was his philosophical approach to provide entertainment for all ages -- very clean and wholesome entertainment."